by Elise Broach
“Yeah, we’ll work it out,” Jack said desperately, sending Simon a dark look.
“Okay, but no more yelling,” Mrs. Barker warned. “Oh, and Delilah? Would you mind giving your mom a call and checking on dinner tonight? If you can come over, I’ll ask Mr. Barker to pick up a couple of things on his way home.”
“Sure,” Delilah said politely. “I’ll call her right now.” She clamped the ribbon-tied stack of blue note cards securely under her arm and walked over to the phone.
As soon as they heard Mrs. Barker’s steps receding down the hallway, Delilah turned to Simon, who was fuming, and said, “I’ll tell you what we can do. We’ll find this woman Prita. Then we can give her back the letters and ask her about your uncle Hank … and the key, and the directions to the mine. Maybe she knows something about the candle box full of gold.”
“That’s a good idea,” Henry said, though he realized that she was probably only suggesting it to distract them from the argument over reading the love letters.
Simon groaned. “How are we supposed to do that? We don’t know where she lives.”
“We can look her up in the phone book,” Delilah answered calmly.
“Um, no, we can’t. We don’t know her last name.”
“But we have her initials,” Delilah said.
“Phone books don’t list people by initials, you goof. And we don’t even know if she lives around here.”
“Yeah, that’s just DUMB,” Jack added.
Henry thought for a minute. “We could ask Emmett. He seems to know a lot of people. And Prita is a strange name—there can’t be too many of them.”
“I still don’t see why we can’t read the letters,” Simon complained. “What’s the big deal?”
“They’re private,” Delilah insisted. “What if he was her true love?”
“Uncle Hank had tons of girlfriends. What makes you think she’s so special?”
“I can just tell.” Delilah’s chin pushed forward stubbornly. “I think she was … the one.”
“One what?” Jack demanded.
Henry gathered the other postcards together and looped the string around them, pondering Delilah’s comment. “She means the one. The one special person he was meant to be with from the very beginning.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Simon scoffed. “The world is full of billions of people. You think there’s just ONE right person for each of us?”
“Yes,” Delilah answered promptly. “That’s what my dad always said.”
Henry turned to her in surprise, but she was already picking up the phone, punching a quick series of keys. “Mom? Hey, it’s me. I’m at the Barkers’. No, nothing’s wrong. Mrs. Barker wants to know if we can come over for dinner tonight. With their aunt Kathy and Emmett Trask—remember Emmett? Great! Okay, I’ll tell her. Yeah, I will. Bye.”
She turned back to the boys. “I’ll hold on to these,” she said, still clamping the packet of letters against her side. “I’m supposed to ask your mom what time we should come and what we should bring.” With that, she bounded up the basement stairs.
* * *
That night, Aunt Kathy and Emmett showed up with a big yellow bowl of potato salad, and Delilah and her mother brought coleslaw. Mrs. Barker made hamburger patties at the kitchen counter, patting them swiftly into shape and then dropping them on a platter, while Mr. Barker laid out a spread of “fixin’s,” as he called them—squeeze bottles of ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise, and a platter of sliced tomatoes, onions, and lettuce leaves.
As soon as Emmett walked out onto the deck, away from the other adults, the boys and Delilah swarmed around him.
“Do you know anybody around here named Prita?” Delilah asked.
“Sure,” Emmett said. “Prita Alchesay.”
Delilah elbowed Henry smugly. “Those were the initials!” she whispered. “PA.” Henry grinned back at her. How could it be so easy? They would find her after all.
“You know her?” Simon asked in disbelief.
“I sure do.”
“That’s a funny name,” Jack said.
“Not really,” Emmett replied. “It’s Apache.”
Jack bounced on his toes. “Apache! INDIAN? Is she a real live Indian?”
Emmett laughed. “Yes, Jack. There are lots of real live Indians around here. They lived here before anybody else did, and there are still plenty of people with Apache heritage in this area.”
“Cool!” Jack shouted.
“Does she live here in Superstition?” Henry asked.
“Yep. Not far from me, actually.” Emmett leaned against the deck railing. “Why?”
“Oh,” Simon said nonchalantly, “Uncle Hank was friends with her.”
“Huh. Now that you mention it, I remember seeing them together. And it makes sense they would have gotten along.”
Before they could pepper him with more questions, Aunt Kathy came tapping over in lime green sandals with very high heels. She was wearing a flowery white and green sundress and carried a tiny purse, in matching green, slung over one arm. She slipped her other arm around Emmett and beamed at him. “Now, what are you all chitchatting about?”
Henry looked at her pink-cheeked, glowing face and realized he had never seen her so happy. These days, whenever she was with Emmett, she looked positively giddy … like she was at a carnival and had just stepped off the most fun ride in the world.
“Do you believe that there’s one person for everybody?” he asked her suddenly. “A person you’re meant to be with?”
Aunt Kathy tilted her head to one side, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, that is such an interesting question. And believe me, I have had this conversation more than once. Are we fated to be with one person? Does everybody have a soul mate? And how about this: will we even recognize that person when we finally meet him?”
Emmett shot her a look of tolerant amusement. “And what do you think?”
“Well, this will probably surprise you, sweetie, but I am a pragmatist at heart,” she said, leaning against the railing next to Emmett and resting her head on his shoulder. “I think the belief in ‘the one’ has caused a lot of people a whole lot of heartache. They wait around expecting to be struck by lightning—love at first sight. They believe they will just KNOW which person is the right one for them. But really, love is not like that. It’s a matter of choosing … choosing to make someone your one.”
Emmett nodded thoughtfully and said to the boys, “Listen to your aunt. She’s a genius about this stuff.”
“Kathy’s a genius?” Mr. Barker interjected, on his way to the grill. “Then I have to hear this.”
It occurred to Henry that his father was likely to have an interesting opinion on the matter as well. “Do you believe that there’s one person for everybody, Dad?” he asked.
“One person who is your destiny,” Delilah clarified.
Simon snorted. “One person out of the seven billion people on the planet.”
“Yes,” he answered promptly. “But it doesn’t always work out, so you have to be willing to settle for second best. Like I did with your mother.”
“WHAT???” The boys cried in unison.
“Laura Milner,” their father said dreamily.
Mrs. Barker opened the sliding glass door, balancing the platter of hamburger patties on her hip, then following Delilah’s mother onto the deck. “Oh heavens, don’t get him started on Laura Milner,” she said.
“She had the face of an angel.” Their father sighed.
Mrs. Barker rolled her eyes. “And the legs of a dancer, don’t forget.”
Aunt Kathy’s laugh rolled through the air in throaty, infectious waves. “Laura Milner! I haven’t thought about her in ages.”
Henry looked from his father to his mother in total bewilderment. He knew his father had had several girlfriends before he got married—which, frankly, was unsettling enough—but this was the first he’d heard of anybody named Laura Milner.
“You’ve never talked about her,” he said
to his father in surprise.
“That’s because he never went out with her,” Mrs. Barker explained. “She wanted nothing to do with him.”
“Well, no matter.” Mr. Barker shrugged. “She was the one.”
“The one that got away?” Mrs. Dunworthy asked, smiling.
Delilah looked horrified. “If she was the one, how could you let her get away?”
Henry turned to her in reproach. Didn’t she realize that if Laura Milner hadn’t gotten away, his father would never have married his mother … and he, Simon, and Jack would not even exist?
Mrs. Barker laughed. “Oh, Laura Milner got away all right. As fast as she could!”
“And then you were stuck with him,” Aunt Kathy said to her sister.
Mrs. Barker smiled. “It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.”
Mr. Barker winked at Henry. “See that? For your mother, I was the one.”
Henry decided they were all joking around, as adults were wont to do … not taking the question seriously. Simon must have concluded the same thing, because he beckoned to the other kids. “Let’s get out of here.”
Mr. Barker grabbed his shoulder. “Not so fast, sport. I’m putting the burgers on.”
“We’ll be right back,” Simon promised. He led the way into the kitchen, now vacated by the adults. “We need the phone book,” he said in a low voice, as he stood on tiptoe to reach the cabinet above the kitchen phone. “So we can look up her address.”
Delilah grabbed Henry’s hand and squeezed it. “We’re going to meet Uncle Hank’s one true love,” she whispered. Henry looked at her shyly, feeling a strange warmth flood his cheeks.
“No such thing,” Simon snapped. “But”—he opened the slender Superstition phone book and ran his finger down one thin gray page, until he stabbed it triumphantly—“tomorrow we’ll go see Prita Alchesay, at forty-nine Ken-tee Court.”
CHAPTER 12
PRITA
THE NEXT MORNING, with the sun already a hot white orb in the sky, the boys rode their bikes over to Delilah’s. Henry knew it would be another scorching day. Behind the slanted roofs of the houses, he could see the dark, jagged slopes of Superstition Mountain. It was hard to believe they had managed to climb up and down the mountain three times that summer. It was hard to believe they’d managed to climb the mountain and come back at all. So many people never did.
“She lives on Ken-tee Court?” he called to Simon.
Simon nodded. “We’ll go down Peralta and then turn left after Delilah’s street. It’s the dead-end road there.”
“The name of her street…” Henry began.
“Yeah, I know,” Simon said. “I recognize it. It was someone we read about, wasn’t it? The Indian girl who led somebody to the gold mine?”
“That’s it,” Henry said. “But I can’t remember if she was real or a legend.”
“She was the one who got her tongue cut out!” Jack yelled. “For telling where the gold was.”
Trust Jack to remember that, Henry thought.
Delilah was waiting for them at the end of her driveway, sitting on her bike. “I have the letters,” she said, gesturing to the ribbon-tied packet in her wicker bicycle basket.
“I still think we should read them,” Simon grumbled. “But maybe this Prita woman will tell us what they say.”
“Do you think we should call her house before we go over there?” Henry asked. “If she’s as old as Uncle Hank and we just show up, it might scare her.”
Jack was already halfway down the block and showed no signs of slowing down.
“I think it’s okay,” Simon said. “We’re just kids. It’s not like we’re going to rob her. We can always send Delilah to the door.”
“Sure, I’ll go first,” Delilah said agreeably. Henry sensed that she was trying to ingratiate herself with Simon, probably because of their disagreement over the love letters. For some reason, it annoyed him.
* * *
A few minutes later, they had reached the end of Ken-tee Court, where a small, peach-colored stucco house stood, surrounded by desert. The house looked neat and quiet. The garage door was closed.
“This is it,” Simon said. “Number forty-nine. It doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”
Jack dropped his bike with a clatter next to the mailbox and started up the driveway, but Henry stopped him. “Wait, Jack. Delilah’s going first, remember?”
“But I want to see an Indian!” Jack protested.
“You will,” Simon assured him, “but only if she lets us in the house. Stay here while Delilah goes to the door.”
Delilah snapped down her kickstand with one foot and propped her bike by the edge of the driveway, taking the packet of letters from the basket. The boys watched as she approached the front door. Henry saw her toss her braid back and square her shoulders. She pressed the doorbell.
There was no answer.
Glancing back at them with raised eyebrows, Delilah pressed the doorbell again.
“Maybe she’s not here,” Henry said.
“Try knocking,” Simon suggested.
Delilah made a fist and rapped her knuckles on the door twice, waiting.
After a minute, the door opened partway, and a woman with long silvery hair stood on the threshold. Her face was round and a pretty light brown color, crisscrossed with wrinkles. Her eyes were bright and dark.
“Yes?” she said. “May I help you?”
Henry could see Delilah shift nervously. “Is your name Prita?” she asked. “Prita Alchesay?” She held out the ribbon-tied bundle of blue note cards.
The woman gasped and immediately reached for them. “My letters!” she cried. “Where did you get these?”
“Come on,” Simon whispered to Henry and Jack, and they all three walked up the driveway.
“We’re Hank Cormody’s nephews,” Simon called.
“Great-nephews,” Henry said.
“Are you a real Indian?” Jack demanded. He looked skeptical.
“Jack!” Simon scolded.
Prita’s smile was a wide flash of white across her face, as she held the packet of note cards with both hands against her chest.
“I’m Apache,” she told Jack. “Ndee, we call ourselves.”
“But you look just like a regular person,” Jack complained, and Henry cringed to think that he must have been expecting feathers and tomahawks.
“Well, I am that too,” Prita said. “So, you’re Hank’s family! Come in, come in.”
She swung the door open and beckoned them inside her small, tidy house. Henry could feel the cool blast of the air conditioner coming from a room in the back, and she led them toward it, into a glassed-in sunporch that faced Superstition Mountain.
“He spoke of you so often,” she said. “Which one of you is Henry?”
Henry’s heart leapt. Uncle Hank had told her about him! About him.
“I am,” he said, looking up at her.
“Oh, I am so glad you came.” Her hand rested on his shoulder. “I have something for you, Henry. Your great-uncle asked me to give it to you.”
Henry’s eyes widened. “What is it?”
“I’ll have to find it for you. I know I should have come over to see you long ago, but I…” She stopped, then said simply, “It was hard for me to think of going to his house without him there.”
Delilah was watching her, a serious look on her face. “You miss him.”
“Oh yes. Every single day.”
“But how come we’ve never heard of you?” Jack wanted to know.
It was strange, Henry thought, that Uncle Hank had never mentioned someone who seemed to be such an important part of his life. What did it mean?
Prita sat in a chair near the windows and motioned them toward the two sofas. “Your uncle and I are … we were both very…” She hesitated. “Private.”
Delilah shot Henry a quick, confirming glance.
“We didn’t read your letters,” Simon said quickly, and Henry thought it was qui
te clever of him to take credit for that discretion now, when he had been the one who was so determined to read them.
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Except for one,” Simon said. “There was one that wasn’t tied up with the others, and a key fell out of it.”
Prita was still holding the little bundle of note cards in her lap. She smoothed the silken ribbon and studied Simon appraisingly, waiting for him to go on.
“We know where the key came from,” Simon said. “It’s the key to room six at the Black Cat Hotel in Gold Creek. And you gave it to Uncle Hank.”
Prita’s eyebrows lifted. She continued to gaze at him silently. Henry noticed that this not-responding was a good way for her to respond, because as the silence yawned into awkwardness, Simon felt compelled to keep talking.
“Julia Thomas’s room. Why did you have it?”
“It was given to me a long time ago,” Prita said quietly. “By someone who wanted help finding the gold.”
“Who?” Henry asked, his voice as quiet as hers. “Who gave it to you?”
“The person is no longer alive.”
Henry and Simon exchanged glances.
“What happened—” Henry started to ask, but Simon interrupted him.
“We know you gave Uncle Hank the directions to the Lost Dutchman’s Mine—we found the note with your handwriting on it. And we know Uncle Hank went to the gold mine. We just don’t know if he ever found the gold.”
When Prita said nothing, Simon squirmed. “So … do you know if he ever took gold from the mine?”
Prita looked at him steadily. “No, he didn’t,” she said finally.
Henry leaned forward, scrutinizing her calm face. “But why not?” he asked.
“I convinced him not to.”
All four children stared at her.
“Why’d you do that?” Jack demanded. “He would have been RICH!”
Prita shook her head. “No. He would have been dead.”
“What do you mean?” Delilah asked. “He is dead.”
Prita sighed, and gathered her long hair in one hand, twisting it over her shoulder. She stared out the window, her eyes tracing the dark silhouette of Superstition Mountain. “He would have died sooner. A bad death. A death full of suffering.”